..Finally, the expectation that free-radical damage on its own might cause ageing needs to be relinquished in favour of the recognition that the free-radical theory is just one of the multiple mechanisms driving the ageing process...

..In this article we review what is currently understood about the factors underlying the variability of life span and consider the implications for research that aims to improve the predictability of health in old age...

..Growing evidence indicates that the global aging process is more malleable than used to be thought. This needs to be taken into account in efforts to improve health and retention of mental capital across the life course...

The connections between general and reproductive senescence and the evolutionary basis of menopause

..An elegant new study of genes acting downstream of these signals in the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans reveals a plethora of information about the complex network of mechanisms that modulate the ageing process...

Changing complexity in aging: a metric not an hypothesis

Thomas B L KirkwoodDepartment of Gerontology, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Institute for Ageing and Health, Newcastle General Hospital, NE4 6BE, Newcastle upon Tyne, United KingdomNeurobiol Aging 23:21-2. 2002

..The model can be used to carry out a variety of in silico experiments in which different genes are knocked out and the results of simulation are compared to experimental data. Possible extensions to the model are also discussed...

..But other work shows that there is a strong positive association between DNA repair-mediated protection against cancer and ageing. So what are we to make of the new data with regard to overall understanding of the mechanisms of ageing?..

The plastic fly: the effect of sustained fluctuations in adult food supply on life-history traits

..We show for the first time in aging human tissue that RC deficiency attenuates cell proliferation and increases apoptosis in the progeny of RC deficient stem cells, leading to decreased crypt cell population...

Mitochondrial DNA mutations in human colonic crypt stem cells

Robert W TaylorDepartment of Neurology, The Medical School, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, United KingdomJ Clin Invest 112:1351-60. 2003

..These studies have important consequences not only for understanding of the finding of mtDNA mutations in aging tissues and tumors, but also for determining the frequency of mtDNA mutations within a cell...